BM# 102 : Week 2, Day 3
Theme : Recipes from South America

With some showers here, the weather is on the pleasant and cooler side now. So for the third day, I didn’t hesitate to make hot chocolate. Surprisingly my husband loved this more than my son, both of which is due to the presence of ginger in the drink. I loved the ginger in there too.

There is no unique recipe for hot chocolate or this version of spiced hot chocolate. There are so many different recipes to be found in the internet. Many have orange zest in it and no ginger, but after trying it with ginger, I have become a fan of the flavor. The recipe here is from the book Gran Cocina Latina which I have borrowed from the library.

The book mentioned truffles from a shop for hot chocolate, so I think this recipe can be adapted to make chocolate truffles as well to make instant hot chocolate. The cream for ganache can be seeped with the spice mix and later filtered and added to chocolate to form truffles. The truffle balls can then be added to hot milk to make hot chocolate. A good quality chocolate is needed to make this, I used chocolate chips since that’s what I had in my hand.

Read on for the recipe.

Recipe source: The book Gran Cocina Latina

Serves: 4

Ingredients:

• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 3 star anise pods
• 2 whole cloves
• 1/2 teaspoon peeled and chopped ginger
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract or one vanilla bean
• 4 cups whole milk
• 100 grams bittersweet chocolate, chopped

Method:

1. Grind the sugar, cinnamon, star anise, cloves,ginger and vanilla beans into a fine powder using a blender/food processor.
2. Combine the powdered spices with milk and bring it to a boil. Reduce heat, let it simmer for 5 minutes, stirring In between. Take off heat and let it sit covered for ten minutes for the flavors to seep.
3. Strain the milk into a large saucepan, place over medium heat. Add the chocolate and beat with a whisk vigorously until you have a good froth. Serve immediately.

Check out the Blogging Marathon page for the recipe from other Blogging Marathoners.